AbbVie is slated to become the largest pharmaceutical company by prescription drug sales in 2028, according to a recent forecast published by Evaluate Pharma.
The analyst forecasts AbbVie will generate annual prescription drug sales topping $65 billion in the next six years. Despite no longer having approximately $20 billion in annual sales from Humira after 2023, the report indicated that AbbVie will benefit from boosted sales of Rinvoq, Skyrizi and Venclexta.
In its latest quarterly earnings, AbbVie reported net revenues of $13.5 billion, up 4% year-over-year. The company generated $940 million from Skyrizi, up 63.7% year-over-year, and $465 million from Rinvoq, up 53.6% year-over-year.
The report stated that Roche will be the second-largest pharma company, with prescription drug sales of $65 billion, followed by Johnson & Johnson at $62.3 billion, Merck & Co. at $59.7 billion and Pfizer at $57.1 billion.
Pfizer led all pharma companies with sales of $72 billion in 2021, according to a brief published in Nature, driven largely by its COVID-19 vaccine with BioNTech.
Rounding out the top 10 are Novartis at $55.2 billion, Astrazeneca at $54.5 billion, Sanofi at $50.8 billion, Bristol Myers Squibb at $44.3 billion and GSK at $44 billion.
Merck’s Keytruda is forecast to generate sales of $30 billion in 2028, making it the biggest-selling drug of that year, according to the report.
Keytruda sales increased 23% to $4.8 billion in Q1 2022 after the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug as a single agent for patients “with advanced endometrial carcinoma that is microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair deficient.”
Additionally, AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso and Lynparza are expected to double sales between 2021 and 2028.
Meanwhile, the report forecasts that BMS, which has one of the oldest product pipelines in pharma, will suffer from “significant patent erosion” towards the end of the decade. The forecast also indicated that BMS’ Revlimid, Eliquis and Opdivo could face cheaper competition in the coming years.
